Author's note: This is a long story, some 68,000 words in total. If you don't like lengthy stories, please pass this one by because you will not enjoy it. The story is being posted in 4 Parts submitted one day apart.
Thanks to Blackrandl1958 for her editing skills. I would also like thank Harddaysknight for taking a lot of time and energy to beta-read this tome and show me where to improve it. Both have helped me immensely and any errors that still exist below will be there because of mistakes I alone have made. I sincerely appreciate the sacrifices the two of them have made to help me get back in the game—after all, it's only been twelve years since I last posted a cheating wife story. J
The following is not a stand-alone story. To make any sense of this Part, you need to read Part 1 first.
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Flyover Country, Part 2 (of 4)
By Longhorn__07
CHAPTER FOUR
I didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life from that point forward, but I was sure whatever I decided, flying would be a part of it. I took refresher courses to reactivate my pilot's certificate, including an instrument ground school and then flew with an instructor for a while to get current again.
My Uncle Jake, my mom's much older brother, and the man who taught me to fly, had passed away six years ago, leaving all his possessions to my mom. That included five small aircraft sitting behind what we called the "North Barn," some three-quarters of a mile away from the house. I put a trio of aircraft mechanics to work in their spare time getting all five back into shape for an FAA airworthiness certificate.
It didn't take very long. I was paying them for the job, not for the number of hours they worked, and I paid them very well. They found they had lots of free time to work on my planes. The five single-engined aircraft passed inspection easily, and I began selling them off to dealers, except for one I sold to a guy with a private pilot's certificate who wanted to get in more flying hours and not pay exorbitant rates renting aircraft. I gave him a especially good deal because he reminded me, of me. I didn't make much money selling Uncle Jake's planes, but I hadn't expected to—didn't need to either.
Finally, I only had one left and I wasn't even trying to sell it. I loved taking it up and getting an hour or two in the sky, just me and the plane.
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I was sitting at a picnic table in the shade of a huge pecan tree outside what looked like a dilapidated old building with a relatively small sign out front identifying the place as simply, JESSE'S. To the locals who frequented the place, no further description was necessary. Jesse was an old black man who looked like he'd just been freed from slavery by a troop of Sherman's cavalry as they galloped past a plantation on their way east out of Atlanta. No one knew how old he actually was, but it didn't matter. Jesse's served up the finest barbeque in the known world, though only the locals, and select passers-by from the city were aware of it.
Late August is hot in Texas—no doubt about it—but at just before straight-up noon, under the spreading branches of the tall pecan, and with a gentle breeze blowing, it was pleasant enough. There was a light plume of aromatic smoke lifting from the smokers out back (as it did twenty-four hours a day) which made folks hungry for miles around. Contrary to the apparent state of disrepair, the place was so clean, inside and out, you could literally eat off the floors.
I came here as often as I could, which was fairly frequently since it lay on the best route between the big city and Mom and Dad's place—my place, now. I couldn't get used to thinking of my new home as "mine."
Today, I wasn't en route to or from anywhere. I just had a craving for some good old Texas brisket and I used the last one of Uncle Jake's planes, an old Cessna 172, to get to Jesse's. There was a huge expanse of prairie adjoining the mowed and well-kept grassy expanse around his business, and he didn't mind at all if I used part of that prairie as a landing strip. It wasn't his, for one thing.
There were a number of picnic-style tables outside under the trees for general use and I was sitting at one, enjoying the day and a great lunch. I was still finishing up a huge brisket sandwich still dripping some of the barbeque sauce I'd poured over the meat. I was steadily working my way through the borracho beans and mustard potato salad too.
While I ate, I was contemplating going back inside to get a big slab of the pecan pie Jesse made fresh daily. My reasoning was that I was working hard every day and easily working off all the calories I was taking in. Therefore, a little pecan pie wasn't going to hurt my waistline one darn bit. That was my theory. Hell, it might even have been true.
I wasn't really paying attention to what was going on around me. I was vaguely aware of the traffic passing by on the worn two-lane blacktop off to my left—the table was roughly at right angles with the road—but I wasn't watching closely. The shimmer of heat waves rising off the blacktop gave me a headache.
I did know when a couple of carloads of young twenty-something folks drove into the parking lot, but I wasn't interested enough to bother with looking them over, even though I could hear a number of feminine voices. I was just barely thirty, but with all that had happened in my life, I didn't have much in common with people who had a 2 as the first digit of their age.
I just kept eating and eyeing Jesse's front entrance over there in front of me. The brisket virtually melting in my mouth was occupying most of my thoughts, along with increasingly vivid images of delicious pecan pie.
There were voices from the direction of two tables full of yuppies, but I wasn't listening—until something did finally register.
"You're gonna just go over there and sit down with ... that cowboy over there?" said a voice I didn't recognize. "Jeeeze! What if...?" someone asked incredulously.
That got my attention. In addition to an old pair of comfortable cargo shorts, an old shirt that had been blue at one time, and a pair of sturdy hiking boots, I did have on a cream-colored Stetson, but lots of folks in rural Texas wore that style of hat. I started to look around to see who else might be the target of that comment.
"He's my ex husband," replied another voice shortly, cutting off the conversation.
I recognized that voice well enough. I turned my head half-left to see my dear ex wife striding determinedly in my direction. My first thought—a thoroughly unchristian one, I admit—was, "Oh shit! What the hell does she want?"
She paused a couple feet short of my table. "I know you probably hate me," she began, "...but could I sit down and talk with you for a minute?"
I put the remains of my brisket sandwich down and took off my sunglasses so she could see my eyes. Mom taught me many years ago that was only polite. I did it automatically these days.
